Need help with mixdown

[John Basile]

I am new to PT, use a 002 system, and can't figure out how to bounce my tracks down to stereo before I burn to disc so I can do a cd burn. the manual is pretty useless in this area. Can someone please tell me the sequence to get my tracks down to a stereo track that is ready to Burn to Disc so I can burn some cd's??
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Mr_Seven]

First select the range to bounce. Under the file menu choose "bounce to disk". Pick the options for your stereo file, as well as stereo interleaved. Make sure to establish a file name and location. Engage.

[John Basile]

Darren, I tried the bounce to disk and found that I could not make any changes to the audio as it was being transferred. What I need to know is how do I mix down my ten or twelve tracks where I am riding the faders, etc. to the final stereo track that I will then bounce to disk to be burned to a cd. I don't know how to do this.

[brianpatrick]

You can not ride the faders or make any changes at all during a bounce.

PT allows you to write automation which you should become familar with. What you do is practise your mix moves like you would in a conventional studio, then set the Automation tab to "autowrite"; begin playback and then make your mix moves. When you stop the transport and play it again, your move will be part of the instruction for that channel.

Do that for all the tracks, monitor them until it is perfect and THEN bounce down to stereo.

Automation is the keyword, if you want to search the manual or the DUC.

[Slap]

You can't make any changes during mixdowns (bounce to disk).
But behold...what you need to do in order to fix the wolume - or any other thing, Aux level, plug-ins etc - is to automate the mix. And it's SO eays in Pro Tools.

Good luck!

[John Basile]

Thanks for the help guys. I am going in now to work on automation of my mixes.

[Mr_Seven]

Yep John, automation will unlock a whole new world. I usually try to save writing automation to last. You'll find you can automate pretty much anything and everything i.e. plug ins' sends etc. It's a tremendously powerful feature of PTLe. I don't usually "write" it as explained by brianpatrick but rather I write it in by hand. I feel I have more control and can reduce the amount of automation points this way. Have fun.

[brianpatrick]

I agree, Steven, writing is better for most instances. But I thought for John's purposes, right now, that he'd find "riding the fader" i.e. using the autowrite function more intuitive.

Also, I couldn't quickly explain how to write automation. Bbut you're right...that's also why I said look in the manual and on the DUC.

[metaltim]

Originally posted by Mr_Seven:
I don't usually "write" it as explained by brianpatrick but rather I write it in by hand. I feel I have more control and can reduce the amount of automation points this way. Have fun.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">remember he's new...
to 'write in by hand'
get on the edit window, and to the right of the solo, mute, and record buttons is a little downwared arrow.
click and you see waveform, volume, mute, pan, etc...

select which one you want to automate.. then using the pencil tool you can do whatever you want with it...

yoiu;re not going to want to put it on autowrite and move the faders by hand, cause you'll want to change stuff later, it will never be perfect you're first go..

and if you'll notice if you move faders by hand you get a thousnad little points on the automation line, which is a pain if you wnat to change with your pencil

hope that helps..

Tim